Lists, Lists, Lists

Hello, my name is Patty and I'm an obsessive "lister."

My to-do lists are often as long as my must-read lists, and believe me, those are long ones, often further cataloged by genre. One list per genre, obviously. What's the point in keeping all of those lovely books unsorted? My Amazon wish list, until just the other day, included a whopping 876 titles. I have self-improvement lists, task lists, curriculum lists, long-term goal lists, short-term goal lists, menu lists, grocery lists, character development lists (I dabble in a bit of creative writing on the side), and well, the list (ha ha) is endless. Today's list contains directives on making a few last Christmas-related online purchases, reminders about pending appointments, last-ditch motivational pleas to myself to complete and/or start a handful of homemade gifts, and of course, a daily affirmation or two--itemized of course. Do these all keep me on task? Well, of course not, but I'm always hopeful that they will help me stay on task whenever I begin a new one. At the very least, I like to think of them as reminders. I have a terrible memory, and if something is not written down, I'm apt to forget it. Writing things down, whether these are plans, goals, or whatever, makes them more concrete, and therefore seemingly more attainable. Seemingly. Now, writing them on this blog means another thing entirely--accountability.

I obsess about any number of things really, but listing things is high up there on my, um, LIST of quirks. I am certain to never consciously leave home without a paper and pen handy, as I'd surely be lost without them. (Oh, and it must be a pen. The right sort of pen, too. But that's a whole other issue. I swear I can write yet a whole other blog post or two about my fascination with pens. I'm less stuffy about the paper I use, although I do drool over nice quality paper stock, a symptom I think, of having worked in the publishing industry years ago. But I digress...) I write lists, keep lists, and even contemplate future lists. I have even been known to recopy lists. These are things I do practically non-stop.

I first realized that I had a "problem" a while back when I stepped out of my home without, (Gasp!), a writing instrument. Seems as if someone, possibly a little someone, entered my purse and extracted my pen. After a thorough search of my purse which ended with most of its contents poured out onto my lap (that's a lot of stuff, by the way), I came to the realization that I didn't even have anything I wanted to write down. Nope, not a single thing. Perhaps if I had wanted to write a list at all at the time, it would have included just one item. "Double-check purse for writing instrument before leaving home." But of course, one item does not a list make. I reference this story because along with the "not-having-anything-to-write" realization, came another more enlightening one. Had I been in possession of a pen, I would have just come up with something to write. Yes, possibly in list form. So for me at least, having the right instruments, or vehicles of expression at my disposal, can sort of goad on a bit of list creativity. And seeing as most, but not all, of my lists consist of tasks that need to be done, I invite yet another factor into the equation. I am also seeking to sort out priorities and organize the "to-do" chaos that is often undecipherable in my head.

What can all this mean, and what does this say about me? Well, some people seem to think it's a sign of artistic genius, or rather that incidentally, many great artists have had this obsessive list-making trait. Seriously! Oh boy, you better believe I considered jumping on that bandwagon immediately as I'm a wannabe great artist and all that! More likely however, as boring as it may seem and as much as I hate to admit it, perhaps it's just all part of human nature to catalog things on personal lists. And perhaps those who consider themselves list-writers can be further divided into groups, as the BBC article I've hyperlinked suggests. If I had been in charge of dividing them, I'd have done it differently...perhaps classifying these as occasional list writers and obsessive list writers. I just happen to fall into the latter group. Yes, perhaps this list making trait is all haphazard and ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but then again, maybe it's not. I mean, perhaps the level of obsession is relative to the level of genius?

Should I develop an insatiable urge to paint something magnificent, I'll be sure to come back and update.

Still Recuperating

As usual, I labored on Labor Day, and I'm just wrecked this week.  Yes, the exhaustion is carrying over this far into the week, but I hope I'll somehow get a renewed burst of energy today, particularly after our kung fu class tonight.  But of course, then that would mean that I'd be too wired to settle down to sleep later.  In the meantime, I suppose I could just opt for a caffeine fix.

School is going as well as I had hoped, and the deeper we get into our materials, the more pleased I am with them.  We're still relatively new to IEW, but so far, so good.  There are things about the program, however, that are rubbing me the wrong way--for instance, the composition checklist prompting you to add a who/which clause (Why is this necessary?  I urge my dd to skip it if tacking it on seems well, too tacked on), and some of the models they use aren't the best, but it's the sort of hand-holding I needed right now, so for that I'm appreciative.  I don't want to rush to make judgments either way, so I'm riding out these little annoyances for now.  I'm hoping it will all make sense eventually.  So far, it seems easier to use than I had expected.  Granted, we're using SWI-C, so I'm sure that changes things a bit.  Some reviews made it out to seem super time intensive, and perhaps it will be so later on down the road, but for now, the time commitment seems reasonable to me.

As I think I have mentioned before, we're also incorporating some of the writing guidelines Susan Wise Bauer mentions in her writing MP3's (the frequent short persuasive essays), and we are going through Anthony Weston's A Rulebook for Arguments right now for Logic/Rhetoric.  The aforementioned MP3's actually prompted me to pull out my copy of D'Angelo's Composition in the Classical Tradition, and this time, I took more than a cursory look through its content.  I love D'Angelo's explanations of the progymnasmata exercises (the clearest I've seen yet), and I'm sure I'll be incorporating these as well.  As an aside, apparently, SWB suggests using D'Angelo's book alongside Corbett's (i.e. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student).  I wonder where this leaves Kane's New Oxford Guide to Writing, which The Well-Trained Mind suggests we use after Weston's A Rulebook for Arguments?  I'm confuzled.  I think I need a nap.

Week One

We're a week into our homeschooling for this academic year, and while so far, the children have raved about our choice of curricula, it's become painfully apparent that something will have to give.  This is probably one of my greatest challenges.  Everything looks so good, and it all seems so enriching, and at times, even necessary, especially when considering the big picture.  But just looking over at our schedule, it all seems super language heavy, and already I'm thinking that we'll be having a bit of overlap.  I'll be following the WTM writing suggestions for frequent persuasive essays for my 9th grader.  I think the recommendation is about two per week.  I'm considering cutting it down to one short persuasive essay per week as we're also using IEW this year (SWI-C), and doing any more may very quickly turn into too much.

Generally, I think I'm most stressed out when it comes to teaching writing, and I tend to over-compensate in that area.  Language arts came easily for me as a student, but it has always been the most challenging for me to teach to my own children.  What seemed to come naturally for me, was daunting for at least one child, so I found myself having to reassess and adjust our methods.  I'm feeling a bit more comfortable about it all right now, but as mentioned before, I do see some overlap.

Here's what's on our school shelves for this year (some of which I'll have to tweak):

dd14 - Grade 9


Algebra
Foerster's Algebra I - Big hit!  I'm so glad I decided to go ahead and purchase the Math Without Borders CD to go with this.  The Solutions Manual from Pearson was a great addition as well.  My dd is able to do this independently, freeing up some time for me.  Granted, she hasn't gotten very far in the book yet, but the CD lessons are thorough and clear, so I don't anticipate a problem when she gets further into the book.


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Language Arts - Our one multi-pronged subject...


Literature - Still not fully planned out yet, but here are some of our definite selections:
Animal Farm + Portals to Literature Companion
Of Mice and Men + Portals to Literature Companion
Flowers for Algernon
Lord of the Flies
Pride and Prejudice

Literature for Classical Studies -
The Iliad (Prose translation by Martin Hammond)

Essays, Short Stories, & Poetry - 
Wide selection from several anthologies, primarily American

History-related -
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Diary of Anne Frank

Writing -
IEW - Student Writing Intensive - C
Interdisciplinary persuasive papers/essays

Grammar -
Seton Grammar - 9

Vocabulary -
Vocabulary from Classical Roots - A

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American History I - We're using American Vision along with Oak Meadow's syllabus.

Logic-Critical Thinking-Rhetoric -
Critical Thinking: Problem Solving, Reasoning, Logic, Arguments - Book 1
A Rulebook for Arguments

Latin -
First Form Latin
Ecce Romani

Chemistry -
Conceptual Chemistry
High School Chemistry DVD Course from The Teaching Company
MicroChem Kit

Religion -
My Catholic Faith
The How-To Book of the Bible
Ignatius Bible

Computer Skills - with Dad



dd11 - Grade 6 & ds 10 - Grade 5

Math:  Singapore
Language Arts:
Grammar - Rod & Staff (through grade 5 book only)
Writing - Writing with Ease 2 (requiring a bit more from both) & Writing Skills workbooks (plus written narrations for history)
Spelling - Spelling Power
Literature, including Classical Studies related - Father Brown Reader, 50 Famous Stories Retold, The Trojan War by Coolidge, and more yet to be determined

Science - Complete Book of Science along with Animal and Science Encyclopedias

History - Story of the World

Latin - First Form Latin

Classical Studies - Famous Men of Rome along with Memoria Press Guide

Religion -
My Catholic Faith
Concise Bible History

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In addition to the above, the children will also be doing/taking part in the following, some things together:


Runkle Geography (hoping to get to it!)
Art - possibly an outside class
Kung Fu and Tai Chi
Piano lessons
CCD classes and youth group, with dd14 acting as teacher's aid for me during my 2nd grade CCD classes

The girls are taking a break from dance for this year, Deo gratias, so that frees up an extra night of the week.  Joy!